You don’t have to be a News freak to be aware of the unfolding chaos and uncertainty, around the world; from the financial crisis, to cholera outbreaks in Southern Africa, to bomb attacks, and piracy.
What happens in Iran, here in the USA or anywhere around the world, is the result of total breakdown in every area of human life.
As a Bahai, however, I have since I independently became one, read the writings of Baha’u’llah Which warn caution humanity about its future and the road it has to take to achieve harmony and Global peace.
I like to offer te following as some food for thought and reflection in an attempt for the average, even non religious to make some sense of the seemingly unprecedented challenges we are to face in the coming months and years..
I like to quote the following from www.bahaiperspectives.com:
In October 1985, the Universal House of Justice released a statement, addressed to the peoples of the world, entitled “”. It was written “out of a deep sense of spiritual and moral duty”, to bring to the attention of the world “the penetrating insights first communicated to the rulers of mankind more than a century ago by Baha’u’llah, Founder of the Bahá’í Faith”. I recently re-read the 14-page statement, to try and get some perspective on what’s happening around me. It is a succinct, visionary document which gives a clear analysis of the historical forces that have led us here and I would like to share with you some of the passages I found particularly illuminating.
The House of Justice first sets the scene with this description of the world (of the world in 1985, but equally applicable to today):
“The winds of despair”, Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective.” This prophetic judgement has been amply confirmed by the common experience of humanity. Flaws in the prevailing order are conspicuous in the inability of sovereign states organized as United Nations to exorcize the spectre of war, the threatened collapse of the international economic order, the spread of anarchy and terrorism, and the intense suffering which these and other afflictions are causing to increasing millions.”
The discussion then takes on the effects of various ideologies and dogmas, and religion, on the state of the world:
No serious attempt to set human affairs aright, to achieve world peace, can ignore religion. … Writing of religion as a social force, Bahá’u’lláh said: “Religion is the greatest of all means for the establishment of order in the world and for the peaceful contentment of all that dwell therein.” Referring to the eclipse or corruption of religion, he wrote: “Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness, of justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.” In an enumeration of such consequences the Bahá’í writings point out that the “perversion of human nature, the degradation of human conduct, the corruption and dissolution of human institutions, reveal themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most revolting aspects. Human character is debased, confidence is shaken, the nerves of discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty, of solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished.
what are your thoughts ?
Sincerely
Faryarm
